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When a pension holder dies, the scheme — not the executor and not the will — decides who receives the death benefit. What it is deciding differs completely from scheme to scheme, and that is the single most important thing to establish before you assume anything about a particular pension.
Pensions are often the largest financial asset a person leaves behind, yet many families do not know how to claim them or even that they exist. Unlike bank accounts and investments, pensions do not automatically go through probate. Each pension must be claimed separately from the pension provider, and the rules differ significantly depending on the type of pension and whether the deceased had completed a nomination form.
Most pension schemes allow members to complete an "expression of wishes" form (sometimes called a nomination of beneficiaries form), which records who the member would like to receive their pension death benefits. This is one of the most important financial documents a person can complete during their lifetime.
You will read almost everywhere that an expression of wishes is never legally binding. That is true of a great many schemes, and flatly wrong about several of the largest ones. Before you rely on it, find out which of these three the scheme actually is.
Master trusts such as Nest, NOW: Pensions and The People's Pension, and trust-based schemes such as USS, have a trustee with a genuine discretion. NOW: Pensions puts it plainly: "the now:pensions Trustee has the final say over who gets this money". USS says payment "is made at the discretion of USS, but your wishes are of course taken into consideration". Here the form is guidance, and the trustee weighs it against the deceased's circumstances at death — whether they were separated but not divorced from the person named, who was financially dependent, and what the family tells them.
Nest is worth a paragraph of its own, because it offers two things that behave in opposite ways. An expression of wish is discretionary, and Nest says the pot then "won't usually be considered for inheritance tax, as it doesn't form part of your estate". A Nest nomination is binding — "we'll pay your pot only to who you tell us to" — but Nest also warns that in that case the pot "will usually form part of your estate for inheritance tax purposes". Ask which one is on file.
The NHS, Teachers', Police, Firefighters' and Armed Forces schemes are created by regulations. They are not trusts and they have no trustees, so there is no panel weighing anything up. NHSBSA says in terms that the NHS Pension Scheme is not a discretionary scheme.
In several of them the nomination is not merely persuasive, it is decisive. Teachers' Pensions states that a spouse, civil partner or surviving qualifying partner automatically receives the death grant unless the member nominated someone else. The AFPS 15 scheme guide goes further: "Even where a spouse, civil partner or eligible partner exists, a valid nomination will take precedence," and "DBS Veterans UK will comply with the wishes expressed in the nomination form." And the 1992 firefighters' scheme goes the other way entirely — rule E1(4) pays the death grant to a qualifying surviving spouse, or if there is none, to the personal representatives, and a nomination changes nothing.
Where discretion does exist in a public service scheme, it belongs to the scheme manager, not to trustees: regulation 95 of the firefighters' 2015 regulations lets the fire and rescue authority pay a lump sum death benefit "at its absolute discretion".
A contract-based personal pension is an agreement between the member and the provider, so "trustees" is the wrong word there too. The discretion sits with the provider as scheme administrator under the plan rules. In practice it works much like trustee discretion — the expression of wishes is considered but does not bind — but if you are writing to the provider, ask about the scheme administrator's decision, not the trustees'.
The practical implication is the same across all three: an out-of-date form causes trouble. Where the scheme has a discretion it may decline to follow a form naming an ex-spouse; where the nomination binds, the money goes to the ex-spouse anyway. Either way, ask the scheme what it holds before assuming who is entitled.
Key fact about pensions and wills:
A will does not control who receives a pension death benefit. Even if the will leaves everything to one person, the scheme pays whoever its own rules or its own discretion point to. The one exception is where the benefit is payable to the estate or to the personal representatives — the FPS 1992 death grant where there is no qualifying spouse, for instance. Then, and only then, the will decides where it goes.
For a death before 6 April 2027, most pension death benefits sit outside the deceased's estate for inheritance tax, so they are not subject to the 40% charge that applies to assets above the nil-rate band.
That changes on 6 April 2027. HMRC's policy paper of 26 November 2025 confirms that most unused pension funds and pension death benefits come within the value of the estate for inheritance tax, and that this applies "regardless of whether the pension scheme administrators or scheme trustees have discretion over the payment of any death benefits". Discretion will no longer keep a pot out of the estate.
Some things are carved out. "Death in service benefits payable from a registered pension scheme and dependant's scheme pensions from a defined benefit arrangement, or from a collective money purchase arrangement, are excluded from these changes." Exempt benefits, funds under £1,000 and continuing annuities are also outside it, and the existing exemptions for benefits passing to a surviving spouse or civil partner and to registered charities are kept.
One point often reported the wrong way round: after the technical consultation, the government announced on 21 July 2025 that personal representatives, not pension scheme administrators, are liable for reporting and paying any inheritance tax due on unused pension funds. Personal representatives can direct a scheme administrator to withhold funds, which means a beneficiary may only be able to access 50% of the benefits that may be subject to inheritance tax, for up to 15 months after the date of death.
Contact the pension provider or scheme administrator directly and ask whether a nomination form is held on file for the deceased member. You will need to identify yourself as the executor (or next of kin if no executor has been appointed) and provide a copy of the death certificate.
The pension provider will then initiate their death benefit claim process. As part of this, they will:
If you are not aware of all the pension schemes the deceased belonged to, use the government's free Pension Tracing Service at gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details to search for lost or forgotten pensions by employer or provider name.
Where the scheme has a discretion and no form was completed, it must decide entirely on the scheme rules and its own assessment of who should benefit. Where the scheme is statutory, the regulations simply take their course — the surviving spouse or civil partner, then eligible children, then the personal representatives, in whatever order that scheme sets. In the discretionary case, the scheme will usually:
For a death before 6 April 2027, paying to the estate loses the benefit its place outside the estate, and it is assessed for inheritance tax with everything else. From 6 April 2027 that distinction largely falls away for unused funds, which come into the estate either way — but it still matters for who receives the money, and for whether probate is needed to release it.
Many families deal with multiple types of pension benefit simultaneously. Each has different rules:
Contact the pension provider to clarify which type of benefit is available and what documentation they require. Each benefit type may require a separate claim process.
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